Internal combustion engines are well known. Among the known internal combustion engines, there may be found single-cylinder, dual headed engines. In such engines, a single, dual-faced piston moves within a single-cylinder. A combustion chamber is located at each end of the cylinder, each combustion chamber typically having one or more inlet valves, one or more exhaust valves, and an ignition source (e.g., a spark plug. In these engines, a connecting rod attached to the piston is conventionally connected to a crankshaft and the power generated by the reciprocal motion of the piston is converted by the crankshaft into rotary motion.
Lubrication is provides by oil from the crankcase splashed into the cylinder by the connecting rod.
Intake and exhaust valves may be actuated by a cam shaft disposed at each end of the cylinder.
Such engines of the prior art may be either two-cycle or four cycle (or two-stroke or four-stroke in the vernacular). In a two-stroke engine, a complete combustion cycle is completed for each revolution of the crankshaft, in other words, for each up and down excursion of the piston.
In a four-stroke engine, a combustion cycle requires two revolutions of the crankshaft resulting in two complete up and down excursions of the piston for each combustion cycle.
Such conventional designs, whether two-stroke or four-stroke are typically both bulky and heavy. Two-stroke engines are typically more compact and lighter than four-stroke engines having the same rated power output. Consequently, two-stroke engine designs have found favor in applications such as motorcycles, marine engines, and in yard and garden tools. Extraction of mechanical power from a dual-head cylinder of internal combustion engine conventionally requires the piston to be connected to a connecting rod or another part that moves through an opening in one of the cylinder heads. This creates two difficult problems: (a) sealing of the head at this opening so that the seal would withstand high pressure of hot gas created in the combustion process while, at the same time, allowing the connecting rod to move through the sealed opening; and (b) prevention of an accelerated corrosion of the connecting rod and joints exposed to a very hot corrosive exhaust gas. To date, no practical solutions of these problems have been offered. These problems prevent usage of engines with dual-head cylinders in mechanically operated applications such as automobiles, motorcycles, compressors, pumps and garden tools. The present invention offers the way to extract mechanical power from dual-head cylinders while avoiding these problems.